School

Society

Rice Architecture Society is the voice of the Rice Architecture student body. With representatives from every studio, this group helps to shape the culture of the school while also providing a liaison between the students and the school’s faculty and administration.
Society’s main social and educational events include:
  • Weekly open studios: late-night studio gatherings for the exchange of snacks and ideas
  • Mini-charrettes: weekend-long design competitions
  • Architectronica (fall) and ArchiArts (spring): university-wide parties
  • Open houses: post-final review events for the display of semester work
In addition to these events, Society is responsible for curating the student directory, student exhibitions, and intermittent panels with faculty and/or the Dean. Its members provide a voice for the student body and keep students informed about events and opportunities at Rice Architecture.
 
President: Andrew Bertics
Undergraduate Vice President: Andrea Machado
 
Society
ArchiArts Exhibition

Mentorship

Rice Architecture Mentorship is a multi-faceted, student-led platform that explores and expands professional opportunities. Mentorship invites speakers, generates workshops, organizes office and site visits, coordinates externships and mentor pairings, and conducts outreach visits to local public schools.

The Mentorship team combines a student leadership committee and an advisory board. The 2017 Leadership Committee is directed by Jenny Heon with 5 undergraduate and 3 graduate coordinators: Metinee Ding (Mentorship Coordinator), Esther Tang (External Coordinator), Andrea Machado (Lecture Coordinator), Amanda Spitzer (Workshops Coordinator), Phoebe Cox (Field Trips Coordinator), and David Rader, Ana Escobar and Lauren Turnage (Graduate Recess Coordinators). The Advisory Board members are Robert Taylor (B. Arch. '74), Judy Nyquist (Houston cultural activist), faculty members John Casbarian, Nonya Grenader and Troy Schaum, and director of Rice Architecture development and alumni relations Emily Stein.

If you are interested in joining Mentorship, either as a mentor or as a current Rice Architecture student, please email the Mentorship Committee at rampcommittee@gmail.com.

MentorshipWorkshop
Mentorship recess workshop

Recess, an educational outreach component of Mentorship, received requests from local schools to share the knowledge and resources we teach students through our workshops. This motivated the Recess team to produce Recess Exercises, a shared resource to teach students architectural topics and concepts through engaging lessons. Each of the five Exercises may be facilitated without extensive architectural training, and contain vocabulary terms, material lists, and facilitator instructions for completing the Exercise. We hope that students will take advantage of these Exercises and be inspired to learn more about the built environment. Use the link below to download the exercises.

Recess Exercises

How it works

Mentorship

Rice Architecture alumni and local practitioners mentor current Rice Architecture students. These pairings last for one academic year, permitting students to gain 1:1 exposure to a wide variety of practices.

Guest lectures/panel discussions

Mentorship invites alumni and guest speakers to give a lunchtime talk about their own trajectory, usually highlighting a specific project or experience. Speakers provide their own way and orchestrate their own lodging for these lectures. 

Workshops

Each semester students work with faculty members to plan and offer technology and professionalism workshops relevant across studios.

Office visits

Mentorship students arrange frequent small group tours of offices and project sites around Houston. 

Recess

Recess is designed to share the talent and energy of the students at Rice Architecture with the community. Rice Architecture volunteers at the graduate and undergraduate level work with elementary through high-school aged students through our outreach efforts in the community and on campus. In addition to establishing a multi-year partnership with the STEM Chapter at the South Union CDC, Recess has partnered closely with the Rice Design Alliance and with a variety of education-based organizations in Houston to teach students about the built environment. Our workshops are engaging and introduce creative thought processes through tours, presentations, and collaborative design projects. We have seen these workshops have an informative, positive, and lasting impression on the students we are able to reach.

Externship program

Rice University offers winter and spring break Externships. Alumni, parents, and friends of the university host a current student for a one- to seven-day unpaid opportunity to shadow a professional. Mentorship assists in matching students with these opportunities.  

Mentor expectations

Mentors are an asset to the school, particularly our student body. We know that practitioners have demanding schedules and that time is valuable. We ask that mentors commit to four in-person meetings per academic year. Examples of these meetings are attending a lecture together, visiting the student’s studio or inviting them to your office, or just meeting for a cup of coffee at the Brochstein Pavilion. We also ask that you be willing to field periodic phone calls and/or emails with questions from your student Mentee.

Student expectations

As the primary beneficiaries of mentorship, student mentees have a responsibility to initiate meetings with their mentor. Mentorship hosts a kickoff event each year where we introduce mentors to their mentees. This is the perfect opportunity to discuss and schedule subsequent meetings. 
 

PLAT Journal

Founded in 2009, PLAT Journal is published by the students of Rice Architecture. Through a combination of open submissions and commissioned pieces, the editors seek out contributions from various disciplines to further design discourse.

PLAT offers a place to share both work and theory, mixing the projects and writings of established professionals as well as emerging voices. The readership and contributor base stretch worldwide. Each new editorial board develops a unique theme, cognizant of the previous issue. This format maintains PLAT’s commitment to advancing a provocative set of ideas with every release. PLAT 5.5 was recently featured in Metropolis magazine and the Studio NOCK exhibition A Print.

 
Next Issue: PLAT 7.0
"Sharing is caring!," shout employees of the semi-utopian tech company, The Circle, in James Ponsoldt's film by the same name. PLAT 7.0 Sharing will ask if this ubiquitous phrase, first coined in the 1950s by the Salvation Army, is still relevant today and what it means for architecture.
 
PLAT
Spread from PLAT 6.0: Absence
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